


A Fine Line

by kikowest



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Crystal Toyko Era, Drama, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Implied Senshi/Shitennou, Mild Sexual Content, Past Relationship(s), Romance, Shitennou, Zoisite is basically Patrick Swayze in Ghost, ghost - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 12:31:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14671157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikowest/pseuds/kikowest
Summary: She can’t say when it started. Maybe there was no absolute beginning. Maybe it had always been there. Maybe he had always been there.





	A Fine Line

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise! Thought you'd seen the last of me! Some of the Sailor Moon fandom may remember me from my ff.net profile (KikoWest) or my livejournal (SiriuslyLove). I figure I've been out of the game long enough and it is finally time to re-work/lightly edit some old fic and move it on to AO3. It's my intention to begin posting new stories semi-frequently. 
> 
> "A Fine Line" was originally published 9/7/08. This version has undergone minor to moderate alterations.
> 
> \-------------------------

She can’t say when it started. Maybe there was no absolute beginning. Maybe it had always been there. Maybe he had always been there. And like most things forgotten or unwanted or unsaid, it’s a whisper -- a hint of cologne in the bed sheets, a strand of hair put back into place, the feeling of a body so close she instinctively presses against the lab counter-top to let them pass -- before it becomes a roar.

"You can take some time for yourself, Ami," Minako tells her one morning. The look on her face suggests this is an intervention, buffered by the pre-dawn light and the layer of sweat slowly cooling from their morning jog. "Everyone would understand."

"I know," says Ami. "But I'm fine."

She feels shame well up in her gut, mixed with the coffee and fruit she’d eaten that morning. It’s an uncomfortable, unusual sensation, and it makes her feel sour. Tokyo Palace is a diamond in the sky, the spires just touched by the rising sun, but Minako and Ami share an uneasy silence as they walk back through the overgrown rose gardens. In the distance, a train whistles, and Ami thinks she might know how it feels to scream that loudly.

Someone slips and stretches between the two, all invisible elbows and hips and legs. Minako unconsciously makes room -- steps away.

... 

Hideo is successful, ambitious, articulate, and he's _interested_. For a little bit, she is, too. That's the natural course of things (or so she’s told). Eventually, it wouldn't be just Usagi and Mamoru celebrating anniversaries, holding hands, and making plans. Everyone's expectant, because Ami is expectant. She accepts the flowers and gifts and late night dinners like she’s checking off a daily to-do list or anticipating a chess game. He moves his pawn, she moves her’s. He moves his rook, she takes it. She’s careful not to let him take too much -- not anything important. A pawn here or there, maybe a bishop. Anything more feels like losing, though she’s not sure what is necessarily there to be lost.

Almost as fast as it starts, it stops. Rei takes over the negotiations with Hideo’s firm and they sign the paperwork. Ami goes back to the library with a muttered apology. She doesn't answer questions.

Surprisingly, it's Mamoru who corners her a week after Hideo leaves. He leafs through her paperwork in the lab, studying her tight, neat handwriting but not really seeing it. His hair sticks up at awkward angles from how he worries it with his fingers. It’s a nervous tick. Makoto teases him about it -- tells him that he’ll go bald -- but Mamoru does it anyway.

"Did something happen, Ami?" he asks, a little embarrassed. When he goes to lean against the counter, he almost slides right off. He isn’t used to playing Big Brother. Mamoru doesn't like to think about the Senshi and what they might do with men (or women) behind closed doors. It's uncomfortable territory. Mamoru feels he has to ask, though. Just to be sure. "He didn't hurt you?"

She looks almost as awkward. Her fingers twist so hard on the microscope it almost ruins her sample. "No. Nothing happened."

There's truth to it. Mamoru can see it in her eyes. And though it’ll rankle his wife and Minako that he didn’t press the issue, he leaves her with a kiss on the temple and shrugs off a nagging feeling of dissatisfaction. _Ami will talk when she's ready_ , he tells himself. Because if it were him, that’s what he would want.

But Ami is closed mouthed, staring at the wavy blob of biology struggling to divide. She figures she knows how it feels now -- to be divided, ripped in two. Will the second half of herself make a new, better Ami? Maybe an Ami that doesn’t flinch at the ghost of a dry chuckle or the feeling of cold breath on the back of her neck.

"You could just tell them that he wasn't your type," says pale, full lips. They’re too close to her. If she turns around, they’d touch the crest of her hair. "They don't believe you have one, anyway."

She rubs her face like she's trying to rub herself out of existence.

"Go away," she whispers, though no one's around to hear.

... 

He's like a mirage -- solid in the peripheral and hazy straight on. There's dullness to his color, his existence permanently on mute. She wishes they could do the same to his mouth. He's always talking, just like he's always watching. He stares over her shoulder in the lab, sits in the empty chair by her side at dinner, smirks during her presentations, and takes over her bedroom like he has always belonged there. She does her best to ignore him -- her delusion -- but can't stop the blush that creeps over her body every night when her dress drops to the floor.

He whispers to her when the light turns off -- things she'd never heard before or could imagine coming from any respectable mouth. It makes her burn.

She tells herself she's not insane. _There’s nothing wrong. This isn’t real._ It's her mantra, even though she doesn't believe it.

 ... 

"How was it for you, after you remembered?"

She doesn't know why she's asking Rei. There could be a thousand explanations: Rei is there. Rei is stable. Rei is certain. Rei looks at her like she's still Ami, and not this new creature she feels like she's becoming. Rei doesn’t ask questions. Rei just _knows_.

"What do you mean?" Rei responds.

They’re helping in Makoto's rose garden. There are so many bushes -- all newly planted and still wild -- that it feels like an island. The tiny cutters in Rei’s hand make clear, sure snips, though it feels a little futile. Like the roses may rise up and swallow them whole. A few red petals smear their blood under Ami’s sandals as she kneels and watches Rei’s unhesitating hands.

"Just..." Ami trails off, trying to relocate her motivation. Behind Rei, he’s quietly watching. She’s not sure when he arrived. Did she summon him? Did he know she was thinking about him? _Speak of the devil and he shall appear_. "Did it bother you? Do you wish sometimes that you didn’t know what happened before..."

_Before they were gone. After they were gone. After_ we _were gone. Twisted. Robbed. Killed. Murdered._ It hangs between them.

Rei pauses -- thoughtful. Ami sometimes thinks that the parts of Rei not licked by anger are a deep, dark well. She draws from it when things are quiet, or when it’s asked of her, pulling the rope up slowly and steadily so not a drop of purpose is spilt.

"I would never tell Usagi…” Rei said. “It would make her sad. But yes, it did bother me. Just for a little while. Things like that, they scar your soul. I wouldn’t want to go back to how it was before, though. These memories… they make us who we are.” She rubs soil between her fingers like it grounds her and she smiles at Ami. A tight smile. “As Minako would said: You can’t un-ding a bell.”

It makes Ami laugh. It’s shrill and short, but it’s still a laugh. Rei’s smile shows a few of her teeth now.

“Does it still bother you?” Ami asks. She tries to keep the quiver of anxiety out of her voice.

Rei pauses again. The rope creaks. “No. I don’t think so. Not anymore.” _Snip_ . The clippers are sure as they cut another bloom. _Snip._ Dead leaves fall onto her knees. Rei brushes them away without looking, like she’s dismissing her thoughts. “I think that’s for the best. Let the dead rest. We belong with the living.”

She's being honest, and Ami feels part of her heart break. She can feel him -- the weight of the air around him. He’s not resting. He never rests.

"I was just curious," Ami mumbles.

Rei looks at her, seemingly for the first time. Her dark eyes narrow and her eyebrows pinch together. They always do that when she sits in front of the fire, when she’s searching for something she can’t physically see. There's a little taste of energy in the air, and Ami feels her body unconsciously block it out, block Rei from sampling a bit of her soul.

"Does it still bother _you_?" If Rei feels the wall, she doesn't show it. Her tone is nonjudgmental, even if her gaze is unfaltering.

Ami opens her mouth. For a moment, she wants to tell her everything -- every embarrassing detail from start to finish. It feels like there’s a rock in her throat, though, or maybe it's his hand. It feels like he’s suffocating her. He looms, all the hard angles of him are sharper suddenly. He smells like the dark earth and fresh lemons and something so sweet it’s almost rotting. Rei's waiting, but her eyes unfocus for a second. She looks past Ami, and they're both holding their breath.

But there's nothing but the faint buzzing of insects and the sound of the wind rolling across the rose bushes.

"No, it doesn't bother me," Ami answers. The lie is thick in her mouth.

Rei frowns, but turns back to her work.

"Are you going to keep me your dirty little secret?" he whispers in her ear.

"Leave me alone," she pleads softly, almost unconsciously.

Rei's staring at her again. Something in the air burns -- antiseptic and cleansing. It runs between them like wildfire. He takes a step back, and Ami can breathe.

"Did you say something?" Rei asks. _Snip_. A rose head snaps in her hand.

 ...

Sometimes, she gives in. It feels good to have someone to talk to, someone other than the girls. Someone who is familiar, but different. Someone who knows her secrets, though she doesn’t remember telling them to him. Curled in bed, she can almost feel his hand on her back, the softness of his skin under her cheek. With her eyes closed, she can tell herself she's just dreaming -- that she has degenerated into something so macabre. This isn’t like her. It isn’t rational.

"You're not real," she says firmly. "Nothing will ever make you real."

"I'm dead," he corrects. "There's a distinctly pleasant difference."

She doesn't know what to say to that, so she doesn't say anything. He sighs, the sound of a summer breeze through cotton curtains, as if he knows what she's thinking.

"There really is a fine line between genius and insanity," he says.

If it would have made a difference, she'd have dug her fingernails into the tender flesh right above his un-beating heart.

...

Mamoru doesn't keep the box by his bedside anymore. He's created a shrine, a small room off to the side. It's clean and uncluttered. The box sits by itself on a high, marble table, facing the hallway like it's patiently waiting for Mamoru to come pay his respects. All day. Every day. And he usually does, because Mamoru is nothing if not consistent.

She feels almost guilty being there. When she touches the top of the dark wooden lid, it almost feels like it resists -- like it knows she doesn't belong.

The four stones sit quietly on their fabric cushion. They're neutral. She's careful not to touch any of them. She knows about the properties of gems, what happens when you handle them incorrectly. She read it in a book. And these are particularly special -- the deep sheen of them against faded silk. Oh yes. She's oh-so-very careful.

She's also a little afraid _He_ will suddenly appear -- the remnants of his last conscious thought. The idea makes panic prickle through her veins. It's almost silly, she thinks, considering how much time she's spent with him (or her memory of him) the last few months. But it would be confirmation. She’s not sure she wants that.

"Ami?"

The lid snaps shut loud enough to echo. Mamoru stands in the doorway. The box practically hums in his presence.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I..." What was she doing? The thought trails off, and she stands staring at the wall, dazed, as Mamoru comes to settle beside her.

"Are you okay?" he asks, placing a warm hand under her elbow. His other hand rests on the box lid. Protective. Reverent.

"I'm fine." It's an automatic response now.

Mamoru's eyes are tight, but he strokes the lid affectionately. "They weren't bothering you, I hope? Behaving themselves?"

It takes her a second to realize he's joking. Of course they can’t bother her. They’re gone. Trapped. She’s never even seen them as they are now, only called back as shadows to listen and advise. Ami allows a small smile to pull at her face, because she knows that’s what Mamoru expects.

"No," she says. "They weren't bothering me."

She bumbles out an excuse to leave, and he lets her go without asking any more questions -- like it’s normal to find her there. He ignores the fact that none of the other girls have bothered since the room was built. Too many memories. So little closure.

Ami is halfway down the hallway before she slows slows her feet and comes to a stuttering stop. It comes to her like a lightning strike. For once, she hadn’t been lying. _Were they bothering you?_

_No._

Sliding out of the shadows, Zoisite is long and lean and washed out like old linens. He holds out a pale hand. She almost takes it, but her fingers twitch and stay where they are. It's a loaded gesture. She knows it. Knows he’s taunting her. Zoisite knows it too. He smiles.

"Go away," she says petulantly. It makes her angry how much she sounds like a child. She’d never been scared of the boogie man.

"When you don't want me, I will," he replies.

She knows what she wants. Or thinks she knows what she wants. She wants to hate him, and tries to take a futile swipe at him with fist clenched into claws.

Maybe they both get what they want. The sight of her hand running through nothing -- the absence -- hurts her more than his presence ever has.


End file.
